Would you be able to send me a list of shows that are using any of the OpenPalette apps? Jacob at Stage Directions would like to mention other productions, especially off-Broadway, regional, resident theatres, etc. I realize that you probably don't know where a lot of them go, but any information that you have on other users would be greatly appreciated.

Well, Stage West's relationship with Open Palette software goes back a long ways...

Way back when, we were running The Rocky Horror Show... We needed some way to integrate PowerPoint cleanly. (We now have a Maxedia, but I digress...) Robert to the rescue with Lua...

My favourite application came more recently though... A few months back, we opened 'The British Invasion'... A revue show... The LD hung everything but the kitchen sink... Pre-programed in WYSIWYG for weeks... It was a massive show...
Well, the week after it opened, on the Equity day off... Came a special event, and I sat down to program the lights...

First thing I did, was go into the patch, and turn the 'Invert Pan' off the left side of the rig. (Busking Live, I'm a HUGE fan of the inbuilt effects... Some of these don't look quite right with an Invert running...) Programming a few cuelists with some effects... Then I got to wanting all my lights down centre... "Oh, that's not a problem... The LD built a palette for that..." Select my lights, tap the position palette... As you can imagine, half of them went down centre... The other half went into the wings... And I went to my email... Fired off an explanation to Robert, asked if there was any way to save my positions...

JohnGrimshaw wrote:
Just a quick note that my brother and I developed software to separately display/active the "softkeys". This was partly as an exercise to see if it was possible, and partly to address the fact that the Palette hardware deliberately excludes onboard displays.

It was so simple to make happen that I have parked the project for further development when I get a chance. The potential for outboard. "third party" solutions is mind-bogglingly huge, and a smart programmer could capitalise on this this some well built and well priced solutions.

Think iTouch for the lighting world!

...and you know what, I think the iTouch model is EXACTLY what Strand should do. Encourage development of small 3rd party programs by allowing people to "write" applicatons and provide a means so that people can earn a little money directly from the "take up" of those apps. This further encourages people to spend time building and refining ideas.

Sit a bunch of programmers in a room, and they can create a great piece of software. Build it in such a way that a 1000 programmers can adapt the software to new uses and there is no limit to huge range of development options that Strand could never dream of. I have a few of these cooking away in my mind right now, and all it will take is a little effort (I.E: time) on my part to make it happen.

JohnGrimshaw wrote:...and you know what, I think the iTouch model is EXACTLY what Strand should do. Encourage development of small 3rd party programs by allowing people to "write" applicatons and provide a means so that people can earn a little money directly from the "take up" of those apps.